The Ulster Farmers’ Union has welcomed Environment Minister Alex Attwood’s announcement to ease planning rules for farmers. This announcement is an example of responsive Government, with the Minister taking the necessary steps to ensuring that the agricultural industry is able to expand without being unnecessarily restricted by planning rules and planning fees.
UFU President Harry Sinclair said; “Minister Attwood’s announcement to increase the maximum size of permitted agricultural buildings is something the UFU have been lobbying towards for some time. We considered the 300m2 permitted development limit to be too restrictive, outdated and not reflective of modern, fit for purpose farm buildings. Increasing the permitted development limit to 500m2 will enable farm businesses to evolve, become more efficient and continue to produce goods to a high standard without being unnecessarily restricted by planning rules and fees. In addition, by raising the permitted development limit to 500m2 this will help take some applications out of the planning system which will in turn help reduce red tape, expense and delay.
“We are pleased that farms within sensitive areas will also be permitted to build agricultural buildings up to 500m2. In our response to the Ministers consultation we stressed that any deviance for those farms would be unfair and place them at a competitive disadvantage.”
Harry continued; “The announcement that the new rights will also provide for the installation of structures of up to 500m2 to house anaerobic digestion (AD) plants on agricultural units is also welcomed by the farming industry. This is in-keeping with our support for the development of small scale on-farm AD plants. However, we do still have concerns about the limiting of feedstocks to those generated on the agricultural unit on which the AD plant is located. In the UFU’s consultation response we proposed that a farm with their own AD plant should be permitted to import additional feedstocks from neighbouring farms (within an agreed radius) however, this proposal was not accepted.”
